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Host Garrison Keillor answers your questions about life, love, writing, authors, and of course, A Prairie Home Companion.

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November 20, 2006 | 1 Comment

Dear Mr. Keillor,
My family and I listen to the show in the suburbs in South Florida, sometimes driving off to dinner with the girls and I singing the Powdermilk Biscuit song at the top of our lungs, and my wife rolling her eyes.

A few weeks ago we made the pilgrimage to St. Paul to see the show, and we were not disappointed. Truly, I got chills when I heard the opening theme. St. Paul was an interesting city, but one thing we couldn't figure out was how empty the downtown area was. We walked down to the farmer's market Saturday morning around 9:00am, and you could have filmed a movie about the day after the apocalypse. The streets were positively empty of people and cars. Is it always like this?

Chris P.
Weston Florida

Chris, glad you could make it up to Minnesota and bring your girls and only sorry you didn't come in January or February when the city is really beautiful and sparkly and we have a Winter Carnival going on, square dancing on skis, a Snow Angel contest, and so forth. Saturday mornings at 9 is when St. Paulites do tai chi and meditation in their homes. It's a new thing, an hour of relaxation, but people are catching on, though of course there are cheaters who spend the hour at a coffeeshop or go buying pajamas or garden hose. If you'd walked up to any home and peeked in the window, you'd have seen people making graceful stretching movements such as the Heron Rising To The Mountain and Breeze Sweeping The Wheatfield and also Man Reaching To Pick Up Socks. If you wanted to see crowds, you should've gone to downtown Minneapolis.

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